That morning, Tulsa Coach Glenn Dobbs thought about following the team doctor's advice and canceling the game. Fifteen of his 22 starters and most of his reserves were weak and feverish with the flu. The Hurricane was left with little hope and even less talent.

But on that historic day -- Nov. 23, 1968 -- Dobbs' underdog spirit got the best of him. By golly, Tulsa would play mighty University of Houston that night in the Astrodome. Coach Bill Yeoman's Veer offense was leading the nation in scoring, but the Hurricane would somehow find a way to meet the challenge.

It is a decision Dobbs regrets even as the two teams prepared to meet again Saturday in Tulsa, a decision that will live forever in the hearts of his players as well as the NCAA record books.

Houston 100, Tulsa 6.

Houston, superior in any case, ran up and down the field almost at will. The Cougars gained 762 yards, and 12 players scored six different ways. Tulsa players, their legs rubbery, their eyes glazed, could do little but throw up in the huddle.

Since the NCAA began keeping records in 1939, it remains the all-time blowout.

"A total abomination," said Dick Miller, 38, a coach at Tulsa Webster High School who played guard in that defeat. "I wanted to dig under the AstroTurf and sneak out of the stadium."

"We should never have played," Dobbs said. "Flu just swept through the dorm, and the ones who weren't injured were sick. We took the doctor on the plane with us, and he told me the boys wouldn't be able to do a thing. But I just never liked backing out. They tried to act energetic, but they were so weak. My sons Glenn III and John, backup quarterbacks were on the team, and their eyes were glazed with fever."

"You may not believe this, but we thought we could stay right with them," Miller said. "We only brought two defensive linemen and one of those passed out in the locker room with 102-degree fever. It was a patchwork team, but we thought if we could stay within a couple touchdowns, we might get lucky."

The only luck Tulsa had was at halftime, when the players could strip to the waist and lie down in shower stalls, trailing 24-0. Reynolds was packed in ice.

Just after the half, Tulsa scored its lone TD on a pass by Glenn Dobbs III, but it only seemed to arouse the Cougars. They scored four touchdowns in the third quarter and took a 51-6 lead.

The final quarter is what separates the game from a typical blowout. It is also what still burns in the gut of every Tulsa player who suffered through it.

Seven times the Cougars scored. In the fourth quater alone, they scored 49 points. What irks the Tulsa players even today is the feeling Houston deliberately tried to humiliate them.

Was Houston intentionally running up the score?

"When a guy is second or third team and he finally gets in a game, you don't tell him to pull off," said Wright. "We went into the game with the attitude that we would take no prisoners, and the backups were trained that way, too. It was pretty uncontrollable."

Yeoman said, "You can see from the film, they urricane weren't doing much."

Wright said the Houston offense was "not doing anything exotic. We were staying pretty basic."

Still, the scoring summary shows that in the fourth quarter, Houston scored three TDs on passes. The last one came when the score was 86-6.